the next day, Mr. Kim listens to their boss say: "Today the sky's so blue, and no pollution! Thanks to the rain". Once again their social inequality is ironically addressed by Bong Joon-ho. The director points out the unequal effects of climate weather and climate change, as It is known that the rich countries are the ones which most prudence co2 emissions and the poorer ones will be the ones who will most suffer from the effects of climate change in a near future.
Karl Marx, German Philosopher, explains the history of "civilized" societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society. However, not only Parasite reveals this war throughout the whole film, but also reveals the war in between classes.The operating class, as in the Industrial Revolution, fights in between them to take advantage of advantaged ones, as in this case, the housekeepers and the Park family. The movie's name leaves us a reflection about social hierarchy: if a parasite lives in a host and makes its living from its expense, doesn't the parasite also make a living out of its host? Doesn't the elite, Park family, make a living out of the poor families misery? Joo-ho makes the public reflect on who are you really: the host or parasite?
Parasite is a South Korean black comedy thriller movie which premiered last year, in 2019, during Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the film received a series of really incredible awards nominations. While watching it, it is very easy to clearly identify four main topics that portray a piece of our current society's reality and issues: poverty, social inequality, unequal effects of climate weather and climate change, and cultural appropriation.
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The movie tells the viewer the story of the Kim family, which is composed of a couple of unemployed parents and two kids who live in a very small underground apartment. Their extreme poverty and lack of hygiene makes them spend their days folding boxes of pizza so that they can make a living. As the story goes by, one of the kids is hired by a millionaire family, the Parkers, who lives on the top of a big cliff, already creating a contrast with Kim's underground place. Their outstanding house and the luxurious lifestyle they live shocks Ki-woo Kim, the young man who's hired to be their little child English tutor.
With that in mind, Ki-woo starts desiring a better life condition and convinces his family to infiltrate the Parkers house as other employees. His sister becomes the family's art therapist and their parents, driver and housekeeper, getting rid of the people that occupied these positions before. As they infiltrate the house and spend most of the hours of their days there, the social discrepancy between the families start to bother them. The Parkers often make very offensive comments full of prejudice referring to them, which only made the feeling of difference worse. They eventually mention that the Kim's have a very characteristic smell, since they take the subway everyday, and once you have it, it "never leaves your body".
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who are you really: the host or the parasite?
by vytoria f.
Another topic that the movie also slightly criticises is cultural appropriation. Throughout the movie, Parker's youngest child is always sleeping in cabanas, practicing archery and getting himself dressed as indigenous people with his headdress and face paintings. Even though the child is still very young, it is possible to see that Parasite producers were aiming to portrait how cultures that have been oppressed during decades are now being constantly used as costumes and iconic figures. The boy's mom tries to explain he's only a "fanboy", as if he was a band or movie character fan. The problem with this is it creates a misconception and leads people to believe the boy was just "playing pretend' as all other children do. However, they ignore the real existence of indigenous cultures by appropriating themselves for their way of living. As was said by the brazilian indigenous artist Katú Mirim, “Wearing a native indigenous costume is racism because it discriminates our race, strengthens the stereotype of Indigenous folklore and the hypersexualization of indigenous women.”
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(Alert: if you haven't already watched the movie, please be conscious that this paragraph contains spoilers!). During one of the movie's most important scenes, a very strong storm hits the city and destroys all of Kim's home. They move to a place where hundreds of other families that also lose everything are being allocated, and